Published on the Web (online journal)

This lyrically powerful hypertext poem is inspired and informed by a large number of sources, primarily on mythology (mostly Greek) and labyrinths (mandala shaped ones). Centered upon the Minotaur myth, the labyrinth Daedalus and Icarus built to contain it, Ariadne and the Minotaur himself, the poem gives a voice to some of these characters, representing them visually with an image of a portion of the mandala-shaped stone maze, and a body part (in the name given to the node. The hypertext is structured like a mandala, allowing readers to take direct paths in towards a center space with its own nodes. The interface also allows for lateral or circular movement across voices, placing them in conversation with one another and allowing readers to spiral in towards the center. (Source: Leonardo Flores, I ♥ E-Poetry)

"Radio Salience" is an image-text-sound instrument with certain game-like features.  The player (user? listener? reader?) watches an array of four image panels, showing component slices from various larger images.  When any two slices match, slot-machine style, a click will initiate a poetastic moment.  There is no score, so no way to win, lose, or escape.  Radio is all.

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"I have known that which the Greeks do not know -- uncertainty" (Borges).

Just another entry in the Babylon Lottery, this project explores indeterminacy, accident, and resonance, taking as its muse the breathless voice of the airwaves, or radio.   What did those Greeks know, anyway?

Some may ask, are we yet reading?  Well, somebody had to, but in most cases they weren't human. No sirens were harmed, and no one is like to drown.  Also, this is once again not a game. Though what you will see is certainly playable, there is no real contest, no score, no leveling.  Let's play Twister, let's play Risk.

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The screen is divided into four panes, each containing a changing image: actually, a pair of images stacked atop one another, with the upper constantly fading, up or down. Though the colors of these images have been distorted, you'll notice some of them fit together, either as slices of a single picture, or elements of a series.  When two or more of the four panes belong to a single set, click the mouse.  You'll see the full image, accompanied by a gloss or reading. However, if you click while none of the four images match, play is over.  (You can always restart.)  You can only match on an image while it is at least 50% opaque, so be careful about clicking when one of the panes seems ambiguous. If you don't want to listen all the way through a reading, just click.

(Source: Author's description)

Published in the Spring 2007 issue of Born Magazine, this digital interpretation of Rebecca Givens original analogue poem Fallow, makes subtle use of sound and interaction to accentuate the telegraphic and forgotten memories evoked by the poem.

This collaborative poem randomly arranges lines of verse by Lluís Calvo over an image in a page space designed to explore its signal-to-noise ratio. There are three types of noise designed into this space: randomized line placement, a window size too small to read all the lines simultaneously, and an image at a zoom level too close to be apprehended. This requires readers to use its awkward interface to navigate the page space on a two dimensional plane, and to zoom in and out to find a workable signal to noise ration in which one can both view the image and read the text. The work is designed to frustrate the desire for a perfect setting, and so the reader must flutter about like a moth drawn to a flame. Calvo’s lines of verse engage the image thematically and are compelling in the images they evoke, all adding up to a surprisingly coherent experience and meaningful interaction. (Source: Leonardo Flores, I ♥ E-Poetry)

"So Random" is a short digital fiction. It is algorithmically composed on each reading of discreet lexia that are arranged according to temporal and content-based tags. The story combines four first-person narratives to provide a multi-faceted exploration of event and character focusing on point of view, reliability, and causation.

(Source: Iowa Review Web description)

Every writing addresses someone; this someone is often said to be the author's Ideal Reader. But "ideal" connotes a conceptualized, even perpetrated entity that is an entirely different creature from the real person one addresses when speaking. Now it may be useful to make this distinction in order to discuss, in the abstract, the *process* of writing, but the *practice* is wholly different: in writing anything, you address a real person, and, by addressing, conjure that person into your presence — the "materiality" of this being is, well, immaterial. When a real reader (in contrast to an ideal one) takes up an author's writing, she encounters not a voice speaking to *her*, or not to her directly: she comes in on a conversation already in progress, between the author and the person he is addressing in the writing. Given a sense of the occasion she has just joined, she will wisely keep still at first and pay attention, not just to the author's voice, but also to the silence of the other person listening to him at that moment. Thus she comes to know them both. The Authors who speak in _We Descend_ emerge from a span of many generations; what they have most in common is that their Writings have captured the imagination of one Curator after another, each of whom came to feel urgently that "the archives" must be preserved for, and thereby transmitted to, the generations to come. In addition, each Curator has imprinted the archives with the forethought and care he or she took in provisioning them for this further journey — hence the Apparati built into the structure of the Writings' presentation, which then become part of the story. The present Curator feels strongly that this story is best told in hypertext form, which enables its many voices to resonate with one another in many ways. The Reader herself will judge the strength or fault of this approach, of course, but, throughout, it has been this Curator's earnest intention, in every contrivance, to prepare her way into this ongoing colloquy of persons, which now includes her. As work proceeds upon the remaining fragments in the archives, the sequence, structure, and interface of their presentation are all certain to change, and even when that work is finished, it is likely that some disagreement will remain as to what belongs where or came from whom. Be that as it may, it is hoped that this provisional offering will find favor not only with new readers, but with the patient friends and colleagues whose unfailing encouragement has been necessary as breathing to me. Thank you, my patrons. Bill Bly Bethlehem PA US New Year's Eve 2014 (Foreword, We Descend Volume Two)